


Bathymetry

by shinesurge



Category: Kidd Commander (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 14:05:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19702876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinesurge/pseuds/shinesurge
Summary: A generous embellishment of what we saw Ulrich get up to around page154and why he seemed a bit out of it on page127of A Wretched Analog.





	Bathymetry

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of weird silverspeaky hallucination stuff, self harm mentions.

The mask isn't quite the same, still; these aren't the original feathers he'd worn on stage. He set these for a costume party ages ago, he can't remember the details of the event because his memory had decided the two days spent on the costume was the more vital information. He knows it was held on the waterfront. He remembers the mist, too. He grips the wings, the synthetic feathers unnaturally cold to the touch, feels the porcelain unyielding under his fingers. A pair of tiny blue Ulrichs stare back at him from the lenses. All three of them look uncomfortable about the whole thing.

It should be simple. If Monterey is going to drag him into the mind games he plays with Decodenn then Ulrich is more than happy to play, certain whatever Monterey might have up his sleeve doesn't stack up to Ulrich's own experience. And seeing as he's outnumbered, Ulrich's decided to bring another player along _._ It's just. A bit unclear where to send the invitation.

It isn't like Phineas and her star. Ulrich and Bel don't...converse, he can't feel anything on the other side. He isn't even sure if the vision that comes to him is really her, or some guilt-laden fabrication, maybe even something as pathetic as an imaginary friend. In his madder moments he had considered it might be some kind of demon here to punish him. It hardly matters, the important thing right now is it has only ever seemed interested in pushing him along his chosen path, a shove in the direction he's already going. Whatever it is, it has bolstered him many times when it's been needed, and it seems fitting to ask the extra passenger in his mind to be the one to protect him. Ulrich has no idea if Silverspeaking onesself to get to the...sub..personality? The parasite? Is a good idea or if anything going on here even works like that. But he very much wants to help Agatha, and very much does not want Monterey in his head again, and not exhausting his options never sits well.

He is self-conscious in his own bed even though Phineas is pacing the front deck and he had asked Lucky Noon to leave him be before the gala. To rest, he'd said. He still can't be sure if Noon ever really leaves him alone, but there aren't many choices for privacy; going outside Noon's area of effect would just leave him vulnerable to whatever Monterey's been doing. His chest tightens with the abiding feeling of being trapped. He shoves it down automatically, the habit reflexive and the panic more annoying than debilitating. At the moment.

The tiny Ulrichs sigh up at him. He's put it off as long as he reasonably can; the rest of his outfit is altered and laid neatly on the bed beside him, his boots are cleaned, he's showered and shaved and done his makeup. There's nothing else to do but this, but there is so much tangled up in the trying. When he calls up Silverspeak accidentally, when he had been desperate to survive in the darkness under Last Chance or just now in the engine room with Agatha, it is so easy he doesn't realize he's done it until later; like every piece in the mechanism of himself is fitted back in place and clicking along with no grinding edges, no jumped gear teeth, and the path to that wellspring of smokey menthol words is so clear and simple he can't think of why it had ever been an issue.

Every time he tries it _intentionally_ , tries to go back and remember how it's done, there's a pressure in his head that worsens the longer he looks at it. Bel almost always appears when he makes his attempts, just as a touch on his shoulder, carding fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck while his breathing returns to normal. Not quite admonishing, it's almost like she steps in and guides him away before he...hurts himself. Drags him up for air before he drowns. These developments are fairly recent, but Bel had never _said_ anything about them until she came to him in Goddard's estate, and her direct, gentle order had been a departure from her usual sneering criticism of his actions.

He presses the pad of his thumb over one of the white spots in the feathers. He doesn't like to go against Bel's wishes, demon or not, but he can't stop _thinking_ about it. He needs an edge, to help Agatha, but he can at least acknowledge now it's more than that. The curiosity is getting stronger all the time and, in some selfish part of him, he just wants to chase that feeling of being whole, even if it's only for the length of a sentence, a few words.

He'd considered trying in front of a real mirror, unsure if the recent episode was made more intense by drugs or if perhaps the mirror itself had had something to do with it, but the ordeal at the estate hadn't been productive as much as terrifying. He _has_ to keep control, he can't stand to even think of how humiliating it would be for Phineas or Lucky Noon to find him babbling and bleeding on the floor of the bedroom if he screws this up somehow. Even under better circumstances, potentially rewriting one's own thoughts while under that power's influence seems _catastrophically_ stupid. _Phineas_ stupid. He would never live it down, if he had the sense to be embarrassed after this.

But, he licks his lips and pinches the feathers under his thumbs. It's the fucking moon wrenching up the tide in his still waters, he _knows_ he shouldn't wade out into that sea but something is calling him _so_ sweetly. He hasn't felt that good since the stage, maybe Silverspeaking is _better;_ he could at least quantify how performing felt. When he's speaking, when it's good it's _everything._

He regards himself in the lenses; the two Ulrichs are distorted and small, but it might be enough. It has to be, doesn't it? He finds his own gaze and clears his throat, and finally begins to sing softly. An old shanty he plays on his mandolin sometimes. Simple, rhythmic, he foregoes the pretty melody in favor of low droning notes, nearly a hum.

It's uncertain at first, he still feels humiliation gathered in his shoulders. What exactly does he think Bel can do? Could this even work against whatever Monterey was doing? The voice of reason that Bel can't possibly be there pipes up, of course she can't, but is immediately drowned out by the chorus of other equally logical reasons why she _could_ be, the ancient grooves of his unreliable perspective canceling each other out and tipping him back and forth like water sloshing in a bottle. Unconsciously, Ulrich moves his hung head in an imperceptible lemniscate around where his eyes are tethered to the mask, just enough to tense the muscles in his neck, like swirling the torrent of his thoughts might give him more control. His spoken tempo slows, his syllables get longer. He breathes in misty air and tries to find a quiet ebb to reach through, a break in the

ah, there-

The words in his throat go cold.

The pressure in his ears changes and the color of the room swims out of saturation except for the blue feathers in his mask, an expanse of dark water. Ulrich straightens his back and swallows hard, trying to pop his ears. His hearing aid is responding strangely, his own voice through it is phasing and shifting and resonating with something he can't place; _something_ must be happening,

the conditions are perfect the whirlpool stretches all the way to the sand but he can see it's not sand it's something else a drowned garden with a drowned ulrich waiting in the flowers he opens his mouth to speak and

He chokes on (tastes like flower petals like green, petals caught in) his dry throat. The coughing fit nearly startles him out of his reverie, but the shock of returning to his senses is encouraging. His dive had been deeper than he thought.

He clears his throat again. The tidal force is still there. He can't swim but he knew how once, he thinks.

The thing of it is, when you pick your knife and curl up on the floor, only dragging the blade over the skin isn't enough. You have to press, hard, to break through. It can't be accidental, there is a calculated decision made to push through the thrum of adrenaline and base instinct and get to the blood underneath. It had taken him two different sleepless nights to muster up the willpower to make it to bleeding during his short affair with blades; he knows it can be done. He steadies himself against the contradictory primal functions screaming in his ears and the sea rushes to take him.

He hums until the world goes fuzzy at the edges again, the Ulrichs in their tiny oceans shake, when blue is the only color left he begins giving directions and his reflection’s nose starts to bleed. He repeats himself, the words rooting in the rhythm and repetition of his song, the waves pressing him into the sand over and over until he's not sure what he's saying anymore. There is an extra reflection in the lenses, someone is here with him, shushing gently in his good ear. One hand swims up around his neck, covering his mouth while the other comes down over his eyes. His mask slips from his fingers and sinks, sending up a cloud of silt as Ulrich sways backwards. The last thing he remembers is the scent of lotus petals; he thinks how odd it is they found their way to the ocean floor.

* * *

Some time later Lucky Noon comes to check on him. If he looks odd, if they have opinions about the state he's in they keep them to themself. Ulrich has no idea what he's accomplished, if anything; aside from some dizziness he doesn't feel any different, hasn't suddenly developed any new resolution and isn't any less anxious than he had been before. But it is, technically, more prepared than he had been when he started, in that he'd at least done Something. He hears Phineas' feet on the floorboards downstairs and he wanders off to meet her, grateful for the distraction.


End file.
